I have to congratulate myself on my sheer genius and dilemma-solving talents.
Saturday night - one begins with two basic choices - stay in or go out. The problem with going out this Satuday is that is Valentine's Day. You know that it will be just awful going into restaurants where there will be couples thinking that it is romantic to have an overpriced set menu and 'champagne' (actually cheap sparkling wine), with a dead rose on the table and a dodgy violinist playing cheesy tunes whilst you are scrunched up alongside the couple on the next table. So restaurants are out.
The sensible thing would be to stay in, not an unusual Saturday night occurrence. Something to eat, a few bottles of wine, a film, or some music. Trouble is, there is something I want record off the radio. It's on for four hours. I could either record onto cassette tape, off the analogue radio, poised to switch cassettes at the right moments. But that would rule the stereo out of use for the evening. Or I could tape it via the TV, which would put the telly out of service for the evening. (I can't really expect Jimmy to put up with a four hour broadcast radio of a Russian opera on a Saturday night!).
But I am a genius. We have been saying for ages how we must go greyhound racing. He suggested going a month or so ago but I didn't fancy it because it was bitterly cold and wet and windy outside. So, we will grab an early meal in wimbledon town centre and then we'll go the dogs. Which is a pretty cool way of spending Valentine's Day ie not fulfilling any marketing company's idea of what constitutes romance.
